Thursday, July 3, 2014

A Tree That Might Save Your Life - Maringa Oleifera, or Moringa Oleifera

One of the solutions to many disaster problems may be a tree called a Moringa or a Maringa tree. You can eat most of the tree, either fresh or dried. The leaves are higher protein than milk and they have more vitamins than most vegetables. 

The seeds can be ground up and used to clean dirty water. Not having clean drinking water can cause more deaths than a disaster itself, so Maringa tree seeds can save lives in a disaster.

There is more than one type of Maringa tree. I am aware of at least three types. Only one will clean water. That kind is a Moringa Oleifera. 

Many countries now grow Moringa trees. These trees have already saved countless lives during disasters and in everyday living for poor people.

Moringa trees come from Africa and are a hot weather tree. They are quite hardy and will live in varied climates. 

In colder climates, Moringa trees do not make it through the winter outside. They can be treated as an annual and replanted from seed every year or potted and moved inside.

The problem with potting a Moringa tree is that they grow very fast and very tall. They can grow 15 to 20 feet tall in a year. 

A man on youtube was kind enough to demonstrate how to deal with a potted Moringa tree. He cut his off down to the hard, stiff, woody part and then had two trees. The rooted bottom part of the Moringa tree will grow another top and you can take the cut off top and grow roots on it. He chose to shorten the cut off top part of his tree since the cut off part was long and spindly, before he potted it. He had staked it  for support, before he cut it off originally.

You can dwarf your Moringa tree so that you can leave it inside all the time. Here is a link to an article about dwarfing fruit trees: 
http://homeguides.sfgate.com/create-dwarf-tree-orchard-23420.html

Be sure to look at the links in the above article. It has a lot of links to universities that teach agriculture.  

I have just received my first Maringa seeds from an online order. I got a lot of them and hope to harvest and eat leaves and other parts of the trees. I intend to dwarf my trees and grow them mostly indoors, since they prefer warmth. Since I live in a cold climate, I may take some trees outside during the summer to give them a boost with more sunlight. 

According to the people I got my Maringa oleifera seeds from, once the trees get a woody base on their trunk, they become more hardy and can tolerate some cold. I gather that a hard freeze will kill them, however.

Making powder of the Maringa leaves sounds like a good idea for emergency use. It also sounds like a good idea to keep plenty of Maringa oleifera seeds on hand for emergencies, because of their ability to clean dirty, contaminated water.

You may become healthier if you include Moringa leaves and other parts of the Moringa tree in your diet. They seem fairly easy to grow, so you may enjoy growing them for your own use.


A Threat To Your Health In Your Drinking Water That You Can Fix

Most people assume that since their cities put chlorine in their drinking water that it must be good for their health to drink it all the time, or at least safe to drink.

The reason for having chlorine in your drinking water is that if it is not in there you will have a chance of dying soon of disease from bacterial contamination in your water. It has to be in there to keep you alive for right now.

There is a problem with the chlorine staying in your water after it protects you from disease. That chlorine that just protected you, will now start causing you problems. Just because the chlorine does not kill you as fast as the disease germs do, does not mean that it won't kill you or hurt you eventually.

Here is a link to a report to thoracic, or chest doctors about the dangers of chlorine: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3136961/

Here is another article that is easier to read and understand: http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2011/chlorine-accidents/

Here is a link about what to do if you are exposed to a lot of chlorine on the Center for Disease Control site from the USA:
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/chlorine/basics/facts.asp

It is not very nice to tell you about problems without giving you a solution, besides first aid and medical care afterwards. Prevention is good.

Therefore, try not to drink water with chlorine in it. Reverse osmosis is a pretty expensive way to get chlorine out of your water. If you have the money and want to use it to clean up your water, go for it.

There are cheaper ways to get chlorine out of your water. Less expensive than reverse osmosis, are various methods of filtering out the chlorine. They have filters that can be put on the water line into your home and will remove chlorine from the water as it enters your home. Unless you are especially handy, this will require a plumber or other specialist.

You can buy a filter that fits on the end of your kitchen tap that filters the water as it comes out. They also have some filters that will fit on the faucet in your bath or shower. I read that you are exposed to more chlorine than you drink, by a shower or bath.

There are other filters that can be pumped manually to force water through them. Those kind are often used by disaster workers or missionaries who go to remote areas. 

Other filters work by gravity. You pour water into them and catch the clean water as it drips into another container. Brita makes these and they can often be found in department stores, including Wal Mart and the like.

I believe that one of the best kinds of filters for people of fairly modest means is Berkey. They are made in Texas in the USA. These are often used by preppers and stored away waiting for a disaster to strike.

Berkey filters remove 99.99% of chlorine from your water and you can buy an additional filter to remove fluoride, which is not good to swallow either.

Katadyne is the name of a brand of filters that disaster workers and missionaries often use. They make a big filter that can be pumped in order to filter large amounts of water as may be required for an entire village.

Here are sites to look at filters:
http://berkeywater.com/start.main.html


https://www.brita.com/?locale=us&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=Purification%2520System&utm_campaign=BFR_Product_General+Filter_Broad


http://www.katadyn.com/usen/


 These are reverse osmosis systems:  http://www.kinetico.com/water-system-quick-quote/


http://www.aquatechnology.net/homeusero.html

In case you can not afford any of the systems mentioned above, you can get a lot of chlorine out of your water by just letting it sit exposed to air for a while. It is a good idea to put something that will let the chlorine escape on the top of the container and still keep out dust and bugs. A piece of cloth, with a rubber band or cord or piece of yarn or string around the top of your container, will work. 

Chlorine is quite volatile, so you can boil your water to encourage it to evaporate from your water. 

There is yet another cheaper way to get bad stuff, including chlorine out of your water. It is by using the ground up seeds of a tree called a Maringa Oleifera. There are other kinds of Maringa trees besides Oleifera, but Oleifera is the only type that I am sure will clean water. I already wrote about this tree on my blog. You can do a Google search with the name of my blog and Maringa and my blog post about Maringa trees will pop up. It tells you more about how to use the tree to purify water and the nutritional benefits of Maringa trees. They are amazingly good for you when you eat most parts of the tree.

It will help you to live longer and stay healthy longer if you get chlorine out of your diet and drinking water. If you have to use it to purify water during an emergency, it is still a good idea to find a way to get the chlorine out of your water before you drink it. If you want to avoid drinking chlorine during a disaster, it is best to plan something like a filter or boiling, to have on hand.

I hope you will take care of yourself and your family by finding a way to keep chlorine out of your body and those of your family.